Rob

The Cubs are currently the only team in serious negotiations for Peavy. However, due to our lack of pitching prospects, we're trying to get a third (or maybe even fourth) team involved to facilitate a deal. No other team is making a serious bid at Peavy right now though, so we're taking our sweet time getting a deal worked out. It could be a while yet.

Does anybody know when the spring training schedule will be announced and when tickets will go on sale? I'm trying to make some plans for my spring break.

I didn't think the acquisition made much sense from Beane's perspective... I guess I just didn't see the endgame.

Randy Johnson has been below average exactly once since Nelson Mandela was let out of prison. Calling him bad, or saying he's likely to be bad is stupid. You can say he might not be healthy... you can say you don't think he's worth the money he'd cost. But arguing that he's bad... that's stupid.

How can you make the assumption that he'll probably be bad? He's still a good deal better than average. Cause he's 45 and injury prone? I seriously can't believe anyone is considering this a good idea. Injury prone doesn't make him less effective, it just makes him effective less often. I'm not saying I want to pay a few million dollars to get the same production Sean Marshall can give us... I just don't think it's correct to predict that he'll be bad.

No. Between DeRosa and Fontenot, we have too many good players for too few at bats already... why would it make sense to trade our top prospect (and others) only to exacerbate the problem?

How can you make the assumption that he'll probably be bad? He's still a good deal better than average.

Everybody hates NSBB. We're pretty full of ourselves. No its not that. We are just the biggest and most popular Cubs message board on the internet. Like all popular things, its cool to hate us. Well played, sir.

Everybody hates NSBB. We're pretty full of ourselves.

Nope. Check it out for yourself... you'll have to cut and paste this link. http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/index.php?view=pitching&linesToDisplay=50&orderBy=der&direction=DESC&qual_filter=ignore&season_filter[]=2008&league_filter[]=2&team_filter[]=FLA&Submit=Submit I'm confused again. That site says that Florida, with 116 throwing and fielding errors, was second only to Washington in committing the most errors in the NL. How does that help the argument that Gregg was the recipient of a good defense? For the record, errors don't mean jack squat. What I had that link set up to display was defensive efficiency... which is a measure of how often the defense turns a ball in play into an out... which is what we're looking for... not whether they committed "errors". And what you're seeing is that Gregg benefited disproportionately from his defensive unit (which BP has ranked just a tick above the middle of the pack... 13th overall). They turned 75.3% of the balls in play into outs with him on the mound, but only about 69.3% on the average. So that's it then, the DER is what matters? I see he also has a similar DER in 2007. Amazingly, they just field better for him. The pitcher has nothing to do with this? Are Harden (.790 DER) and Marmol (.831) just lucky too because the defense seems to play better for them? Or does how they pitch have something to do with what kind of balls are put in play? I find it odd that Gregg, Pinto, Volsted, Olson, Nelson, and Nolasco, all pitchers with decent DER numbers (and coincidently better LD% than the rest of the staff) were simply the beneficiaries of a good defense playing over its head just for them. I completely disagree that one sole stat like DER is the tell all about a pitchers performance if three stats like BAA, OBP and SLG are just random as I've been told. And in 2004 Gregg ranked 11th out of 16 Angels pitchers. And in 2005 Gregg ranked 15th out of 18 Angels pitchers. And in 2006 Gregg ranked 15th out of 18 Angels pitchers. You say Gregg has just figured it out. I say his defense is doing him some favors the last couple years. I'm not calling DER the one telling stat for pitchers. It's telling of team defense, and that's about it. His strikeout rate, walk rate, groundball tendencies, and other peripherals are much more important (read: stable) than junk like hit rate (which is why BAA, OBA, and SLG are less useful). DER was simply a tool to help prove that there's a whole bunch of sway in hit rate (without resorting to arbitrary scoring decisions like calling errors).

Yeah, but we also got Bo Flowers along with Novoa. And Scott Moore.

Nope. Check it out for yourself... you'll have to cut and paste this link. http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/index.php?view=pitching&linesToDisplay=50&orderBy=der&direction=DESC&qual_filter=ignore&season_filter[]=2008&league_filter[]=2&team_filter[]=FLA&Submit=Submit I'm confused again. That site says that Florida, with 116 throwing and fielding errors, was second only to Washington in committing the most errors in the NL. How does that help the argument that Gregg was the recipient of a good defense? For the record, errors don't mean jack squat. What I had that link set up to display was defensive efficiency... which is a measure of how often the defense turns a ball in play into an out... which is what we're looking for... not whether they committed "errors". And what you're seeing is that Gregg benefited disproportionately from his defensive unit (which BP has ranked just a tick above the middle of the pack... 13th overall). They turned 75.3% of the balls in play into outs with him on the mound, but only about 69.3% on the average.

Nope. Check it out for yourself... you'll have to cut and paste this link. http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/index.php?view=pitching&linesToDisplay=50&orderBy=der&direction=DESC&qual_filter=ignore&season_filter[]=2008&league_filter[]=2&team_filter[]=FLA&Submit=Submit

Relievers don't have all that much control over their triple slash stats. Look at Brad Lidge... his peripherals stayed pretty constant, but luck has made his numbers jump all over the place. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/stats/players/index.php?lastName=lidge So, even indicators like K/BB rate and GB % aren't good enough because in the Lidge example you posted, his K/BB ratio and GB % has been about the same over the last 4 years yet his SLGA has been .323, .408, .409, and .269? Conversely, when Gregg's GB% and K/BB ratio were better, he posted much worse slash splits. Is it fair to say that we really don't know what will happen and can only go by what has happened? No, not really. You're attempting to give Gregg triple credit because the Marlins defense has performed extremely well behind him the last couple years... something which he had no control over.

Relievers don't have all that much control over their triple slash stats. Look at Brad Lidge... his peripherals stayed pretty constant, but luck has made his numbers jump all over the place. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/stats/players/index.php?lastName=lidge

Urge to kill... rising...

Fair enough.

I didn't think GB rate took that many innings to stabilize, generally.

I'd feel a more comfortable if I could figure out whether Gregg is a groundball guy or a flyball guy, but his tendencies jump all over the place. GB% 2004 - 42.5% 2005 - 48.0% 2006 - 35.7% 2007 - 29.0% 2008 - 44.8%

Kevin Gregg nets us draft picks if he closes for us and closes well. Carlos Marmol can be more effective for us if he isn't closing. That's as far as I need to think about it.

I'd imagine he splits the difference pretty well. The numbers last year looked kinda flukey, but he did lose a tick off his fastball and his slider isn't good enough to cover that up. FLUKEY?!? Every other ball he threw ended up on waveland. Exactly. Pitched Ball Data FB 2006 - 82.8% (92.8 mph) 2007 - 86.2% (92.3 mph) 2008 - 74.8% (91.2 mph) SL 2006 - 14.7% (84.2 mph) 2007 - 9.7% (84.4 mph) 2008 - 23.1% (83.3 mph) Batted Ball Data K/9 2006 - 8.8 2007 - 8.3 2008 - 7.4 BB/9 2006 - 2.1 2007 - 2.2 2008 - 1.6 LD% 2006 - 18.0% 2007 - 19.7% 2008 - 17.9% GB% 2006 - 37.8% 2007 - 32.4% 2008 - 34.9% IF/F 2006 - 13.5% 2007 - 14.0% 2008 - 11.7% HR/F 2006 - 9.1% 2007 - 8.0% 2008 - 12.3% DER 2006 - .712 2007 - .711 2008 - .656 Here's the conclusions we can draw pretty safely. 1.) He lost a tick off his fastball, and that probably accounts for the slightly reduced strikeout rate. 2.) The defense behind him fielded 8% fewer of the balls put in play behind him than they usually did. 3.) He threw the slider way more than he had in the past. There's not really anything to account for that dramatic difference in his HF/F numbers though. You're pretty likely to see a regression there. Maybe not all the way, but it wont stay that high as long as the rest of his numbers are pretty stable.

Also important to note... Gregg needs to be our closer to potentially net us 2 draft picks. Sure he may still qualify as a Type A if he doesn't close, but no other team will be willing to sign a non-closing reliever that will cost them a first or second round draft pick.

They're non-tendering Wuertz.

That doesn't sound like Jim Hendry at all.

We just traded one of our top prospects for somebody who's no better or worse than Michael Wuertz.